Actor and comedian Rob Schneider's tweets and re-tweets about Covid-19 vaccines and precautions got ... [+]
Actor and comedian Rob Schneider was trending on Twitter on Saturday. And it’s not because he’s coming out with a new movie sequel named Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo Endgame or Deuce Bigalow: Pitched Tent Perfect.
There’s no indication that such sequels are in the works. Instead, his name seemed to be trending because he sent a series of tweets and re-tweets about the Covid-19 vaccines and other Covid-19 precautions that then got quite a lot of responses. For example, here was one of the exchanges:
Hold on a Second. Did he actually refer to the Second Amendment, the “right of the people to keep and bear Arms” one when telling people not to get the Covid-19 vaccines?
It’s one thing to decide not to get the Covid-19 vaccine. No one is really forcing anyone to get vaccinated. Instead, there are efforts to clear up any misconceptions about the vaccine. This includes helping people really understand the facts behind the good protection offered by the vaccine and its safety record. It also involves dispelling myths such as unfounded claims that the Covid-19 vaccines are designed to alter your genes and claims that Covid-19 vaccination is a “human experiment” rather than an effort to stop the ongoing Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
At the end of the day, if you still don’t want to get the Covid-19 vaccine, that’s your choice. Just remember though that every choice has it’s consequences. You won’t be able to do everything that you may want to do. It’s similar to how deciding not wearing shoes and a shirt may prevent you from getting service at a business, or a job, or a date. Or maybe the shirtless may get you a date, depending on what you have up there.
It’s another thing to tell other people to not get the Covid-19 vaccine during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Such vaccination is a population intervention and not just an individual one. Getting more people vaccinated will decrease the risk of infection for everyone, both vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
It’s totally something else to invoke the Second Amendment. Was Schneider actually suggesting that others should use the Second Amendment against Covid-19 vaccination:
Or was he somehow confusing the right to bear arms with the right to have bare arms?
Schneider didn’t stop there. He sent out a number of different tweets and re-tweets that all railed against Covid-19 precautions in ways that weren’t exactly consistent with scientific evidence. For example, this tweet seemed to equate face mask use with child abuse:
As another example, he re-tweeted a tweet that said “the vaccine is only to prevent the infection in the person getting the vaccine,” which is just not scientifically accurate. The greater the percentage of the population that is vaccinated, the lower the risk of infection for everyone, including those who are not vaccinated. This is the established principle of herd immunity.
Of course, his tweets alone didn’t get his name to trend. That would have required him to send out at least a thousand tweets in one day. Instead, his tweets garnered a bunch of tweet responses and re-tweets such as:
And this:
As well as this:
But not everyone may have known who Schneider is:
After all, the Deuce Bigelow movies, his stint as “the copy guy” on Saturday Night Live, his role on The Hot Chick movie, and all the Adam Sandler vehicles that he acted in came before 2010:
This tweet offered a perspective from @KellyScaletta:
Again Schneider is entitled to make his own choices about whether to get the Covid-19 vaccines. The key is to remember that every choice has its consequences. Everyone can’t do whatever they want in life. For example, not everyone is allowed to act in Adam Sandler movies. As another example, you can’t just pee anywhere you want to pee.
However, it needs to be clear that Covid-19 vaccines have gone through extensive testing and scrutiny, certainly much more than many dietary supplements and food items that are currently on the market, for example. The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic is real. It’s killed over four million people around the world and over 600,000 in the U.S. It’s caused a lot of suffering. Currently, the only real ways to stop the spread of the virus are some combination of vaccination, social distancing measures, and face mask use.
Again, getting more people vaccinated will decrease the risk of infection for everyone, both vaccinated and unvaccinated people. Delaying vaccination will just allow the Covid-19 coronaviruses to keep infecting people and keep making copies of themselves, which in turn can lead to more variants emerging. And while Schneider did play “the copy guy,” this one situation where “making copies” is not a good thing.
In 2008, Schneider acted in an Adam Sandler movie entitled You Don't Mess with the Zohan. Similarly, you don’t want to mess with the Covid-19 coronavirus. It would be better to get vaccination coverage high enough to really interrupt transmission so that society can truly “return to normal.”
